Sometimes Diabetes Takes Center Stage

Road Race Prep

September 15, 2011

In the process of moving, all of my glucose got put somewhere “safe.” Well the problem with that is that now I can’t find them. I have the bottles, just not the tubes though. And as my mom and I were getting ready to leave for the Halfway to St. Patrick’s Day race on Saturday, I knew we had to stop. We stopped and I picked up two tubes of tabs. And then proceeded to open one so that if I needed it, there would be no problems during the race. Except that the perforated plastic wasn’t so perforated and it was jagged and all over the place and I knew that my skin would NOT be happy. (Sidenote, my uncle owns the bar, so I get treated pretty darn well every time I’m there.) I asked the bartender if he had any scissors, but he told me that the people near the balloons probably had some. They didn’t, but grabbed a knife and began working on the tube. We got in a little discussion about it, and I had to get all the plastic off. This tube had all the nutrition information on the plastic as well, so I needed all of that off. One of the women told me it was fine and that I could already open it. And that’s when I had to explain where I hold it while I run. One of the men said, “Wow. I love making smart-a$$ comments, but I got nothing.” And the other women there said, “I hope you don’t need all this glucose during a 3 mile race.” And that’s when my heart gave a smile because there was no “what is this?” or “what do you need that for?” or “huh?” There was just knowledge. I explained that no, I shouldn’t, but I need to be prepared for anything, and how if the tube isn’t full, the bouncing of the tabs drives me nuts. The shy part of me was mortified about having a conversation about things stashed in a sports bra, but the diabetes blogger in me was really excited about this discussion and how easy it was. And the best part: I didn’t need ANY tabs during the race.